Church’s Chicken®, and its international sister brand—Texas Chicken®, the global quick service restaurant brand devoted to serving the best hand-breaded fried chicken and scratch-made biscuits, has engaged CESO & Clear as its global brand positioning and experience agency to develop the framework for the brand’s next stage of growth for both core legacy and emerging markets. The joint-venture between CESO and Clear will work collaboratively with JWT Atlanta to evolve the Church’s Chicken and Texas Chicken brands domestically and globally. The objective will be to highlight Church’s® intrinsic values and align messages across both brands to create a unified household name.

“We began this process by looking for an international branding agency to help us identify how we evolve our brand outside of the U.S., both the Church’s Chicken brand in the Americas and the Texas Chicken brand in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere,” said Hector Munoz, Executive Vice President & Global Chief Marketing Officer at Church’s Chicken. “But what became abundantly clear is that we need a consistent approach to set ourselves up to compete longer term, so we realized it made sense to consolidate the work streams and unite resources to create a global brand positioning initiative.”

Church’s looked at a handful of different agencies with varying capabilities, but CESO & Clear proved that their hands-on experience would bring value to the collaborative process between key stakeholders such as JWT Atlanta and Church’s franchisees. CESO & Clear has an established track record of working with other respected global food service brands to create multiple consumer touchpoints that all deliver the same messaging and experience as other marketing initiatives.

“The leadership at Church’s has demonstrated a commitment to take this brand in a new direction. We will be clearly defining that unique space in the market, that delivers on fundamental truths,” explained Tom Kowalski, Executive Creative Director for the project at CESO. “We are honored to help Church’s optimize their brand—making it the catalyst for change across all customer touchpoints. Driving meaningful connections with customers and communities can help Church’s become a leading contender in their market.”

Sarah Whiticar, Senior Director of Global Business Intelligence at Church’s Chicken, agrees. “This is a dual path approach, balancing the work that JWT is doing with us domestically to meet some short-term timelines, while understanding the deeper equity in the brand around the globe. This work will help us evolve the brand and, while there may be some slight differences in some parts of the world, we want to leverage our core competencies, understanding how we are the same and how we are different so that we can articulate it in a way that connects with consumers.”

In the first phase of the project, the collaborative agency relationship will be creating actionable guidelines on how the Church’s brand should articulate itself to increase guest visitation, perceptions of value, and ultimately, loyalty.

“This is a unique opportunity to take a brand that is in various points in its lifecycle across the globe and work to develop one strategic global vison for the brand,” said Rhonda Hiatt, Executive Strategy Director for the project at Clear. “It’s a significant opportunity to unlock global growth and ultimately deliver a phenomenal customer experience.”

“This work will enable us to zone in our brand identity, the DNA, the apex of what we stand for, in the eyes of the consumer,” Munoz added. “From this brand truth we can move the path forward to creating compelling brand positioning for both emerging and core legacy markets.”